National Youth Orchestra, Barbican, review

There was delicacy amid the din in this concert from Britain's biggest
orchestra. Rating: * * * *

“Britian's Biggest Orchestra” is how the National Youth Orchestra dubs itself, which is a mixed blessing. It could imply the orchestra is all power and no subtlety, which as this concert showed is far from the case.

Still, first impressions on walking into the Barbican were that a tidal wave of sound was in the offing. Eight trumpets and horns, five harps, 11 double-basses, and everything else in proportion were squeezed on to the Barbican stage for Prokofiev’s exercise in Russian primitivism, the Scythian Suite. With a band of that size edges could be roughened and detail lost, but the delicacy of the solo flute in the opening scene and the rustling strings of the Night scene all registered with beautiful clarity. And the furious triplet rhythms portraying the ballet’s evil genius had tremendous bite. But really, how harmless the piece is despite its extravagant din, as if the Rite of Spring were being acted out in the nursery.

The real challenge came with Berg’s Violin Concerto. The piece is a memorial to Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma and Walter Gropius, and it has in its later pages a valedictory glow and a touch of Austrian folkiness which attract the label “late romantic”. But this huge weight of feeling is often borne by strange, uncannily thin sounds, with a pianissimo violin line hovering precariously above a few muted horns or a handful of solo strings. That sense of fragility, as of someone going beyond suffering to become pure spirit, seemed especially poignant here.

Much of the credit must go to the young American soloist Tai Murray. She is a fabulous player, statuesque and strong, with a flawless control of line. And she never does anything routine. At the furious beginning of the 2nd movement, where the music seems like a soul struggling against its bodily prison, she made a shockingly rough sound. Later, when the storm is over, many violinists seize the chance to make a flatteringly rich sound, but Murray’s was lambent and questing, and never conventionally beautifully. The orchestra players sensed that quality and responded to it superbly. Of the many fine solo moments the double-bass player’s soaring line was especially fine.

After that, Liszt’s diabolical Totentanz was bound to seem a let-down, however brilliantly played by both orchestra and soloist (the young Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear). But our spirits were raised by the final performance of Janácek’s Sinfonietta, which under the baton of Kristjan Järvi was quick on its feet as well as nobly resplendent.